Kim Scott
speaker
322 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Jul 2018
last heard Jun 2025
Kim Scott’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And your job as the leader is to optimize for the collective results, not for one person's results and not to be fooled by that. So that's number one. So what are the kinds of conversational consequences? Let's say in a meeting, this salesperson says something humiliating or arrogant to others on the team. I think that is where you say you can't talk. Use that you statement.
You cannot talk like that. in these meetings. You can't talk to your colleagues that way on this team. Just saying it like that, and you have the authority as the leader to talk that way. It's much harder for the person who's being bullied to say, you can't talk to me like that. Much easier for you as the leader to say, you can't talk that way on this team.
And that will shut the person down and create a small conversational consequence for the person. You can also make sure that you, there was one tech company where I worked where they were redoing their compensation system. And every employee got rated on three things. They got a rating on their results, they got a rating on their innovation, and they got a rating on their teamwork.
And if you got a low rating for teamwork, that was your rating. It was not an average. The point is that bullying others, being a bad teammate is disqualifying for a bonus. So, because there have to be consequences like real, if all you give to a bully is feedback, that may not be enough to get them to change their behavior. They may not believe that it really matters.
They often don't because it has worked for them since they were in middle school. So that's part of the problem. And then thirdly, you got to make sure that you're not, that you're not promoting bullies and that you in the end give people that feedback. And because there are, there have been times where,
where I've worked with people who didn't understand the impact that they were having on others. And so explaining it to them and giving them an opportunity to show me that they care about the impact and that they're trying to change is really important. Not every bully is, I think it's really important. We're awfully fast to judge at this moment in time.
And I think it's really important to work with people.
I think the most important thing that we can do as leaders is to get on a level playing field and build real human relationships with each of our direct reports.
So the one thing, practical tactical thing I'm going to leave folks with is make sure that you are soliciting feedback every single time you have a one-on-one with each of your employees and have a one-on-one once a week with each of your employees. Spend that time with them. And there's four things to remember when you solicit feedback. Okay. Because if you say, do you have any feedback for me?
You're wasting your breath. Oh, no, everything's fine. So think about the question that you're going to ask. I like to ask, what could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me? But don't write down my question. Because if you sound like Kim Scott and not like yourself, then people won't believe you really want the answer.
I was working with Krista Quarles when she was CEO of OpenTable. And she said, I could never imagine your words coming out of my mouth, Kim. The question I like to ask is, tell me why I'm wrong. OK, that's fine. Ask it in a way that feels authentic to you. So that's number one is be authentic. Number two is remember that authenticity does not mean ignoring the impact you're having on others.
So there were some people on Krista's team who found her question too aggressive. So she had to soften it for a couple of people in order to get an answer. Number three, remember that your question shouldn't be answered with a yes or a no. So don't say, is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?
But what could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me? So if everybody can write down their question, whom they're going to ask it of and when they're going to ask it, our time today will be extremely well spent.
I love that. Switching roles is really important. Like putting yourself in someone else's shoes and letting them step into your shoes is a great way to get on a level playing field.
Absolutely. If you go to radicalcandor.com, you can go from there to our podcast, to our newsletter, to the talks and workshops we do for folks. So we'd love to hear from people. You can also send us one of the things we do. I love the stories, John, that you shared with everyone. And so one of the things you can do is submit dilemmas. And we will give you some free advice on the podcast.
So we'd love to hear from folks about radical candor and radical respect. I also want to say we're recording this on Veterans Day. So I want to thank you and all the veterans of our country for their service.
Such an honor to chat. Really love the conversation. Thank you.
The whole point of hiring people is to encourage them to make a contribution. I mean, there's no point at all in hiring great people and then telling them to sit down and shut up, which is really what bias, prejudice and bullying in different ways do to people. I think it's important for leaders to learn how to teach their teams to disrupt bias in the moment.
If we ignore these comments, then we reflect and reinforce them.
The whole point of hiring people is to encourage them to make a contribution. I mean, there's no point at all in hiring great people and then telling them to sit down and shut up, which is really what bias, prejudice, and bullying in different ways do to people. I think it's important for leaders to learn how to teach their teams to disrupt bias in the moment.
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